#591: Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine Fame — Fear{less} with Tim Ferriss

This episode is brought to you by Five Bullet Friday. My very own email newsletter. It's become one of the most popular email newsletters in the world with millions of subscribers. And it's super, super simple. It does not clog up your inbox. Every Friday I send out five bullet points, super short. Of the coolest things I've found that week, which sometimes includes apps, books, documentaries, supplements, gadgets, new self experiments, hacks, tricks. and all sorts of weird stuff that I dig up from around the world. You guys, podcast listeners and book readers, have asked me for something short and action packed for a very long time. Because after all the podcasts, the books, they can be quite long. And that's why I created Five Bullet Friday. It's become one of my favorite things I do every week. It's free, it's always gonna be free, and you can learn more at Tim.blog forward slash Friday. That's Tim.blog forward slash Friday. I get asked a lot how I meet

guests for the podcast, some of the most amazing people I've ever interacted with. And little known fact, I've met probably twenty five percent of them because they first subscribe to Fible Friday. So you'll be in good company. It's a lot of fun. Five Bullet Friday is only available if you subscribe via email. I do not publish the content on the blog or anywhere else. Also, if I'm doing small in-person meetups, offering early access to startups, beta testing, special deals, or anything else that's very limited, I share it first with Five Bullet Friday subscribers. So check it out. Tim.blog forward slash Friday. If you listen to this podcast, it's very likely that you'd dig it a lot, and you can, of course, easily subscribe any time. So easy peasy. Again, that's Tim.blog forward slash Friday.

And thanks for checking it out, if the spirit moves ya. Optimal minimal. At this altitude, I can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start shaking. And I answer your personal question. No sea.

cybernetic organism living tissue over metal mental scale. S Hello, boys and girls, this is Tim Ferris. Welcome to another episode of the Tim Ferris show where it is my job to deconstruct world class performers to tease out the routines, habits, etc. that you can apply to your own life. You will get plenty of all of that in this special episode, which features an interview from my 2017 TV show, Fearless. The less is in parentheses because the objective is to teach you to fear less

Not to be fearless. Fearless features in-depth long form conversations with top performers focusing on how they've overcome fears and made hard decisions, embracing discomfort and thinking big along the way. It was produced by Wild West Productions, and I worked with them to make both the video and audio available to you for free. My dear listeners, so thank you, Wild West. You can find the video of this episode, which is gorgeous. I think they did an incredible job on youtube dot com slash Tim Ferris. Remember two R's two S, youtube.com slash Tim Ferris, and eventually you'll be able to see all of the episodes for free at youtube.com slash Tim Ferris. So You can swing over there and see what is currently up. Before we get started, just a little bit more on Wild West. Spearheaded by actor, producer, and past podcast guest Vin Vaughn, Wild West has produced a string of hit movies, including The Internship, Couples Retreat, Four Christmases, and The Breakup. In twenty twenty, Wild West produced the comedy The Opening Act, starring Jimmy O'Yoang and Cedric the Entertainer. In addition to Fearless, their television credits include Undeniable with Joe Buck, ESPN's 30 for thirty episode about the 85 Bears, and the Netflix animated show F Is for Family. Wild West has also produced the documentaries Give Us This Day, Game Changers. Subtitle Dreams of BlizzCon and Wild West.

Comedy show. And now, without further ado Please enjoy. This wide ranging conversation from fearless. I'm Tim Ferris, author, entrepreneur, angel investor, and now TV host.

I've spent my entire adult life asking questions, then scouring the globe to find the answers. On this show, I'll share the secrets of pioneers who have faced their own fears. We'll dig into the hard times, big mistakes, tough decisions, and how they got through it all. The goal isn't to be fearless, the goal is to learn to fear less. Welcome to Fearless, I'm your host, Tim Paris.

And on this very stage, we'll be deconstructing world class performers of all different types to uncover the specific tactics they've used to overcome doubt. tackle the hardest decisions, and ultimately succeed on their own terms. So my guest tonight is a revolutionary, and I mean that literally, His musical talents have resulted in the sale of more than 25 million albums and garnered two Grammys. Rolling Stone has recognized him as one of the greatest guitarists of all time, and yet he's only had two formal guitar lessons. He's a founding member of Rage Against the Machine, Audio Slave, The Night Watchman, and Prophets of Rage. Please welcome to the stage, musician, singer, songwriter, and author.

Tom Morella. You guys ready for a show? So thank you so much for taking the time. First and foremost, we're gonna start with the video. Okay. And then we'll work backwards from there. Sounds great. Take a look.

Wow wow wow Who

What is it like to try something for the first time and then go present it to others, whether it's to your bandmates or Yeah. Well as a as a guitar when you pick up a guitar you do so because you like guitar playing and guitar players. So the natural instinct is to play. like your favorites. In my case it was sort of my punk rock heroes and then Randy Rhodes and some of the heavy metal guitar players uh and amassing that technique.

Um it wasn't until like maybe late in my college career when I uh I was saddled with at the time everybody liked the Edward Van Halen guitar because it only had one knob on it, the volume knob. That was the coolest thing. I didn't have one of those. I had a guitar with a whole bunch of knobs on it, so it was quite uncool. But one of the knobs I did have on it was a um a pickup selector switch, which chooses between the two, you know, which pickup you're gonna hear sound out of I found that if I manipulated that, the toggle switch. with one of the pickups on zero, the other on ten, it worked as kind of a kill switch. And then I could you know I play notes here, and it sounded like it was a staccato kind of a guitar make. Then I began practicing the eccentricities in my playing.

And once I got out of the rut of thinking that I needed to sound like other guitar players, the horizons were wide open. And the the the the the the nail in the coffin of traditional guitar playing for me was an early rage against the machine gig um in the San Fernando Valley. We were opening up for two cover bands, and the cover bands had very Technically. talented guitar players they could shred like crazy and play beautifully and brilliantly. But I thought to myself, if I'm on a bill with three other guitar players who have that level of Usless technique I don't need to be the fourth one.

And so I veered the ship. Dramatically towards concentrating on The eccentricities of my playing and things were very unique. And then trying to forge into music. Now that did not always meet with popular acclaim both in my band and you know in the world at large. Um Because I would be I'd play the guitar with a pen or with an Allen wrench, which is the thing that used to kinda change the tuning uh on it. Or

And then I began rather than trying to wearing the rather than practicing other guitar players licks, I would just look at the world of sound. And sometimes I would sit in my apartment and just listen. And if there was a lawnmower outside, I'd do my best to approximate that. If there was a television program with You know, about World War Two or about the lions of the Serengeti, whatever was coming out, I would just do my best to approximate it. And while I couldn't play those sounds exactly. I was amassing a catalog.

Of Oh. of noises and textures and rhythms that were totally unconventional. And then building them into the rock and roll songs of Rage Against the Machine.

I remember the exact moment, the exact room where I first heard Rage Hands Machine. It was uh I want to say nineteen ninety two. I was in Japan first time overseas for the first time as an exchange student and I was in my bedroom and some of my friends had sent me The First Rage album. And I remember listening to it and I was always a metalhead. And I was like What the fuck is this? This is a the sound is so unique, and we're gonna back into that. So we won't we won't dig into that part of the chronology right now, but I like your hat. It's been a good year. Where did your parents meet? I think this might be a good question. Yeah, my uh uh my mom comes from a small coal mining town in central Illinois called Marseilles, Illinois. It's spelled like Marseille, France, but it's in central Illinois so it's pronounced. Marseilles. And for some reason my mom is uh

a single woman in the early in nineteen or in the mid-nineteen forties left to travel the world by herself for about twenty years. Uh she taught all around the globe and eventually found herself in East Africa teaching in Kenya, uh where she met my dad. And you were born in the US. I was born in the US yeah. So they they part they parted ways, uh and my dad was part of the first UN delegation and then they split. He went back to Kenya, she went back to uh Illinois. Have you ever explored why your mom decided to travel the world parts of the side? Yeah, it's a question that she hasn't been able to answer to my satisfaction. My mom is ninety three now and I still ask her that periodically. Uh but there's something, you know, sort of uh unique in her constitution that made her, you like boldly you know, she lived in Spain, Japan, Germany right after World War Two, East Africa. She was fearless in her travels, uh, and I've inherited at least a pinch of that.

Libertyville. When did you get a little bit of a little bit of a so so we we live for uh you know as a uh single mom now living in the big city. Uh she moved back where she had support from family. Uh and then the challenge then became finding a te mom who was overly qualified to teach world history and US history, not just from her travels, but from her studies. She had a a master's degree, found it difficult to find a place for us to live because this was 1965 and while She uh the high schools in the northern suburbs were happy to have her as a teacher. They warned her that we as an interracial family, meaning me a half African one year old and her an Irish Italian white lady uh would be unwelcome to dwell within

They Uh and the the the real estate agent, though, w went had to go door to door in the apartment building where we were renting to ask permission from the other the other uh tenants, uh letting them know that this was going to be an interracial family and how they the uh How they sold us to the locals was basically saying, look, this is not an American Negro, this is a very exotic African child. And I

And that and that worked so Sma swimmingly well until I was old enough to date their daughters. And then you could be the king of Nigeria. So that was my introduction. I l I literally integrated the town of Libertyville, Illinois, according to the real estate. That there were that prior to my arrival, there were no people of color residing within its borders. And that was at one. That was at one.

Growing up in in Yeah. Well it was I mean on the one hand it's this idyllic Chicago suburb there's uh Yeah. You can ride your bike, there's f you can fish, there's fields to play football in, it has a tremendous public high school system.

Public school system, but then every once in a while there might be you might find a noose in your family's garage. Did that actually happen? Yeah. I saw a couple of nooses growing up. One was in the garage when I was thirteen, other was when I was fifteen, just walking past the Browns chicken. Yeah, that was a part of the For granted I had great friends and you know great

How did your mom, if she did, encourage you to respond to Well, I yeah, I mean she m my mom uh s remains the most radical member of the Morello family to this day and uh I was at a daycare place I was probably four years old and there was an older kid, a couple years older, who was Race. Taunting me and beating me up or being very physical with me on a daily basis. I'd come home to my mom and and she at four years old taught me about a fellow by the name of Malcolm X. She said, You must stand up. You must stand up.

The store. The story gets pretty dramatic. said you know you have to stand up for yourself here to stand up against racism wherever and whenever it rears its head. I'm like Mom, I'm for she gave me like something like that. You know, had a particular litany of epithets that they were calling me. Uh and so she gave me I had to memorize something to say back. I forget it was like, you know, cracker ass, cracker I don't know what it was. I didn't know what any of the words meant, but I'm like, this sounds like there's gonna be trouble tomorrow, Ma. And uh

And then she like you know, she like balled up my fist and said, and you go at it, I'm like, This sounds horrible. This is a big kid. Horrible. So I go there like dreading daycare the n the the following day and I you know and I'm there and the kids on me and they're N-wording me and they're attacking me and I'm like, You accer, ass smacker, whatever I can't really remember. And I think and I start going at'em and it causes such a ruckus. I'm losing the physical battle, but it causes such such a ruckus. But the The person who ran the daycare for the first time paid attention to the disagreement and I got to with smug satisfaction watch as the young racist child's mouth was washed out with soap in front of the whole crew. Then I went, there might be some of this Malcolm X.

What what effect did that How one you I and it I know that sounds like a very generic, maybe boring question, but Well as someone who didn't grow up with that. And it wasn't from reading Іном Чомський і хай ску, із рекорнізінь.

That there was there there was grave injustice on the playground. Uh and that's something that was uh it's part of my DNA was That I had a very sort of uh strong base of support in my home and Uh a feeling of self worth that came in sharp contrast to, you know, like and I had many good friends. I mean, this was not r you know, it was not There was clan in Libertyville, but there was it was a a lot of great friends, a lot of great teachers, a lot of supportive people. But I

You know, it did come up regularly against people who did not think because of the color of my skin I was as smart as they were. I was as good as they were, that I was as you know, decent a person as they were. And I but I came I had w had the my spine was steeled by the love, care, and resilience of my family to know that I'm just as good as anybody in the room and you know, and uh Oh well. And so is with with confidence that I went into the you know the sometimes the troubled stuff that came up. Do you self identify as black? I mean I've I've thought I mean while I'm c I genetically uh half white.

as the only black guy in an all white town. You're pretty I was the blackest black black ever guy. Yeah, right, right, right. None more black, man. So When did music enter the picture? Yeah, I did um I loved rock and roll from the time you know, maybe eleven or twelve years old, and you know, Kiss was my first concert and it you know, it dovetailed with my p love of comic books and the sort of the superhero elements. Uh but then the aggression of the electric guitars of the bands like ACDC and Black Sabbath, I was you know full 7 Eleven suburban parking lot metal all up and up and down the line. And I love music and I actually played in a band when I was thirteen years old as a singer. Before my voice changed, I was able to do a uh pretty good Robert Plant impression. But uh when it when it descended into the rich milk chocolate baritone you hear today, uh I was clear that I was not gonna be auditioning for A C D C so I had to switch to guitar. I mean I've had the experience.

I think like a lot of kids, my first album ever bought was Master of Puppets. Oh sure. And I'm like hard song. I'm gonna be correct. Lo and behold, demoralized a few weeks later stops. There's a lot of opportunity to be d demoralized when beginning guitar. Um when I first purchased my guitar uh at thirteen, it took me four years to actually play it. I took a couple of guitar lessons and I wanted to learn Uh Led Zeppelin and Kiss Song. So I plunked down my five dollars at the music store and said, teach me these and they said, No, son, today we have to learn to tune the guitar. That sounded like a huge waste of time to me. So I said, Well you know, I'll put in my does, I'll put in a week's worth of does and learn how to tune this thing. So I came back the next week and said, now it's time for Detroit Rock City, right? It's like, no this week we're gonna learn the C major scale. I'm like, I'm out. That is some BS, man. That's a waste of everybody's time. Uh and so the guitar sat in the closet for four years.

And at at seventeen I had the uh the punk rock revelation that that that many do. Like until that point, like all the bands I loved that it seemed it was completely inaccessible. You know, I had a a a a a basement in suburbia on which to practice and these guys had castles on Scottish locks and you know, and groupies and limos and and guitars that cost ten thousand dollars. I I have fifty dollar guitar in a basement when You know, I got the Sex Pistols cassette. I was literally in a band. within twenty four hours of purchasing the cassette without knowing how to play one note on the guitar. I ran into the Libertyville Drama Club and announced

We're gonna be a band. I've got a guitar, so I'm gonna be the guitar player. The first three of you that raise their hands are in the band regardless of musical experience. So was three guys raise their hands, right? And then at that point, how did you Well we wrote songs. There were there were three bands in my high school, and um uh one of them was Destiny and that was that was the pretty boy Bam they got all the ladies they played stick. Kansas journey and they just owned the school. And then there was the bad boy band, Epitaph. And now they covered Black Sabbath, A C D C and they wouldn't they would not stoop to play a school function. It was garages with ripped jeans and weed. And we all like admired them from a distance. We were all afraid of them and admired them.

And then there was the Electric Sheep, my band, the Drama Club Band. And uh Ha We didn't have the technical ability. to play other man's songs. So we had to write our own.

So from day one we were writing our own and from that band, two of the founding members of that band went on to form Rage Against the Machine and Tools, so we were vindicated in the end. Did you want to be a guitarist or was it just I wanted to be a part of it in some way. And then I had a guitar. And then the the thing about punk was it's like I no longer there was there was no longer a barrier. It's like the my the bands that I like, like the Clash and the Sex Pistols, with no musical experience, my level of technical ability was not too far distance from theirs, and yet they were my favorite bands, making the best music that I had ever heard. So I thought it I uh had a formative experience seeing the band.

The Clash, which was my favorite band of all time, playing at the Aragon Ballroom in Chicago and uh in my My high school band The Electric Sheep. I had a sort of a cheap music man amp on a chair in my mom's basement where we would practice. I saw the clash play at the Aragon Ballroom. I'm used to seeing these bands play these huge venues with m walls of Marshall stacks, some of which are dummy cabinets. But I saw Joe Strummer on stage at the Aragon Ballroom. He had the exact same cheap music man and

Amplifier that I did. On a chair on stage of the Aragon ballroom, and that was the revelation that made me realize it's not, oh, I can do this someday. It's like I'm doing it. He's doing it. We're all doing it. We're all we're all just in bands. And that Felt pretty good. What was the process like of teaching yourself guitar? The guitar at first was

an instrument to be in a a band. And then it later became a calling. Like I had many varied interests. Uh but It was when I was about nineteen years old where it's sometimes you choose a thing, sometimes the thing chooses you. And I really felt the guitar chose me. I had no choice in the matter. Um and then I applied my O C D to the instrument and was practicing at some time up to eight hours a day, three hundred sixty five days a year. Are you doing it by ear or are you just trying to mimic or ear, yeah. Not not even I I didn't I never really had the ability to uh a I never had the strength of like learning songs off record. The other thing, you know, to to sort of to uh

psych one on one analysis of why I fell so deeply into that. I I think I f as a grown up looking back, it was a matter of control. There are a lot of things sort of been growing up that I did not have control over. There was sort of a race issue, there was maybe a you know romantic, you know, sort of uh deficit issue, things that you just didn't have control over. I had control over this. Like it's my will and my will alone that will determine the outcome. what happens if I apply myself to this. You like it's just me that makes the decision here. And that was very, very appealing. And then when you start playing two hours a day, you notice like the tide rises quickly. So you bump that to four hours a day and all of a sudden Like everyone around you is marveling at, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And um when you go to eight hours a day, that's when it you know it kicks pretty now.

Clearly well spoken guy. How did Harvard enter the picture? Uh Well I uh I was the first person from Libertyville, Illinois to ever go to Harvard. No one had ever applied before. So after then After I got in then. The floodgates open and now the it's

It's recognized as the fashion of intellect and culture. You just need one exception to the rule, right? To show what's possible. What were the most important things, if anything, that you took from that experience at Harvard? At Harvard. I mean one there you know some lifelong friendships that came out of it and Also like the The the reality of

You have to take risk if you're going to change the world. There was uh big anti apartheid demonstration. We we built a shanty town in Harvard Yard during the graduation when all the Um you know the alum come and are asked for you know to give a lot of money back to the university and we completely ruined Harvard Yard by a Soweto like shanty town in the middle of it and we're all threatened with, you know, expulsion or this, that, or the other. You just have to make a choice. Like are you gonna Do the safe thing or you gonna do the thing that's right? So you graduate did you continue with the poli sci? Yeah, I I graduated in political science and then but with the like I said, th it was a calling. I had interest but music and rock and roll was a calling. And I knew as soon as I graduated I was gonna move to Hollywood because that's where the rock magazines told me I needed to go to pursue my

Dreams. So then what? So I load I loaded up the Chevy Astro van and drove and drove into the sun. All my crap in the back and a dream in my po and about a thousand dollars and a dream. Was your mom supportive? I should have I should have paid better attention in Ec ten because a thousand dollars lasted about s four days when I moved here and all of a sudden I was destitute. Yeah, my mom was very supportive. She I mean she sh given her history of kind of um

Bucking convention, it was not surprising, but she was completely supportive. I said I have got a Harvard degree and I'm gonna go move to Hollywood to try to play rock and roll. She's like Great. Did you have any uh plan B in your head? There was no plan B. I r arrived in Hollywood with big ideas about how I was going to form my dream band. I didn't know exactly what it was gonna be, but I knew the groups that I liked then were run DMC. Aerosmith. Uh

public enemy, like I wanted there to it wanted it to be political. And so Mm-hmm. So I naively put out ads in all the local press saying um Uh shredding guitar player seeks

Uh. Awesome Marxist front man. Influences run DMC and Iron Maiden. I did not get a lot of replies to that. I I had on my apartment in Normandy I put a uh the little thing outside the door with

applic like basically job applications to join my band. My band that does not exist and that no one's heard me play a note of music, but somehow you're gonna walk up these stairs in Department of Normandy, sit on the landing and What are your contacts in the music industry? That went very, very, very, very poorly. Let's talk about the exotic dancing. I got one thing to say about that. The rain ain't gonna pay itself.

So I have I have so many. You got a bachelorette party? I I've got a cassette tape of brickhouse. So I know this show, I gave you this whole thing on Fearless. I would just want to ask a thousand questions about this. So uh the first is What was your stage name? There was no stage name. It was batch two cars. Yeah, it was a duo. It was like me and another dude. We had like a routine. What were do you have any like signature moves?

They're they're lost to the you know the the Dusty annals about the signature moves. You know, we would arrive in suits and you know with some lame excuse as to why we've barged in on this bachelor party. Oh excuse me, we thought this was the such and such. Shoe brickhouse. And then just off to the races. When did you first hear Lock up. I was playing in some I joined some bands just to

be in bands that were not particularly good bands, but there was a band call a local band called Lock Up. Um was playing a place called Els Bar in downtown LA. It was it was a life changing moment. I saw what s then became my favorite local band. It was a band that combined sort of elements of the chili peppers and it was funky, it was hard, and it was but it was new. It was w what alternative music would later become, but was bubbling around in the underground in Los Angeles. Um later I happen to be rehearsing in the same place as this band Lock Up. They heard me playing through the walls, when they got rid of their guitar player, we connected and I joined that band and that band eventually got signed to Geffen Records, which was my foot in the door to the record industry. When you guys got signed. What was the response? Well I mean it we get it's the it's the brass ring. It's the thing you've all heard about. You think

Yeah, when you're in suburban Illinois, you when you get a record deal that you're a millionaire. Yeah. Exactly the opposite. And penniless to you know to the record company. And we every cliched bad dicking that happens to artists happen to that band. They you know they Try to manipulate and change the band's sound and make it more commercial, uh money wise, we're completely screwed over. Uh at the end of the day, we're going to be able to do it. We had like a second guaranteed album that we're gonna you know we didn't make it on the first one, but we're gonna we're gonna try this time. They just said

We're gonna drop the ban right now and you don't have the money to sue us, so Too bad. Wow. And that was that. And I thought, well, I tried. And um I had my grab at the brass ring, it didn't work out, so That being the case, um

I'm just gonna make m music. I'm a musician. That's what I am. I'm just gonna make music that I believe in and not care about. Make em get a record deal or any of that anymore. So Rage against the machine.

coming together of those band members, how did how did uh Zach come into the fray? Well Zach and Tim have known each other since they were kids and grew up together and it was just sort of a fortunate combination of of musical convergence. Um Brad and I played together for a while, then he went on he knew Eddie better. He left to play with a fledgling version of Pearl Jam for a minute. So during that time I met Tim and Zach, then Brad came back and finally we got in a room in August of nineteen ninety one. I think was the first time the four of us were in a room together. How did you develop some of what we saw in the beginning? Were you already there or were you looking for inspiration in other places? The barnyard animal noise stuff. Uh Well

I had s some of those arrows in my quiver. It really wasn't until Rage Against the Machine when I was the DJ in the band. It was a band we we proudly put on the records all sounds made by guitar bass drums and vocals because there are a lot of sounds on those records that are not traditionally associated with guitar bass drums and vocals. And I was very much influenced by, you know, um Terminator X of Public Enemy and the Bomb Squad that produced those records, and by Jam and by Jam Master J and by And by

And by Dr. Dre and like the sounds on those records, I rather than practicing Chuck Berry and Jimi Hendrix. I would try to approximate the sounds that I heard on those records. And while I wasn't always able to get them exactly right, it just put my mind in a completely different place and maybe look at the instrumental guitar in a very different way. It's a relatively new instrument on the planet, and there's no reason to Assume that it has predetermined limits based on the records in your collection. And it's just basically a piece of wood with some wires and a few electronics that

makes sound and we can try to d make sound in different ways and then make music out of that sound. That became I started practicing in an entirely different way and it helped form of um a sound that felt like it was authentic. Іф'я члень the boundaries of any жан. mus your burst beer saying what came before Is not all that there has to be. There can be something beyond that that is yet unimagined. If you say you do that in a musical context, you can also do that in a societal context. And so part of the

you know, exploring those sounds was not just'cause I like to hear a guitar make a quacking noise'cause it's trippy and fun to do, but also it really challenges the boundaries of what has come before on the instrument and perhaps leads to the idea that we can challenge boundaries beyond that music. When did you know it was working? Yeah. And then how did your experience with lock up change how you did things? Yes. The the well I knew it was working the first time we ever performed in front of other humans was at a house party in Huntington Beach, and I had been in a lot of bands and I had never seen

Бенла Банз и Латашо, сім'ла Бан. respond to music the way that people responded to Rage Against Machine at the first show ever played it was like the parents were out of town. They you know, we we knew five songs. It was at a fr I think maybe a friend of Tim and Zach's uh living room at Huntington Beach. We played the first the first song we ever played in front of people is a song called Take the Power Back, and v a pit started in the living room. They thrashed the living room, went ape shit for five songs. Then we just play those same five songs again. And they went double ape shit. And I I I I I never felt anything like it. Um

And that's how it was from day one with that I mean the the the chemistry of that ban Was like that from day one and the reaction was like that from day one. Now when it came to interacting with the evil music industry that we had, you know that I I've been burned by It w I think it was very helpful to have that experience because I didn't care. I knew what it was like. Having a record deal doesn't mean anything. Doesn't mean anything. So there was nothing to hold over our heads. They would call up

Yeah, record companies, managers, publishing companies everybody would call up and say Yeah, we'd like to take the band to lunch and say, we're not interested unless you fax me over a document that says in every f Any transaction we ever have, the man has one hundred percent creative control over what they do and veto power over anything that you do. Then we'll have lunch with you. Yeah.

Did you guys have A a financial cushion or Anything like that at that point? I had a futon cushion, but not have a financial cushion. No, we had between us then I think we had uh one job and two cars. Was there any disagreement in the group about how to take those calls or not take those meetings. You know, we talked about that stuff, you know. I had been th I had been through it before. I was a maybe a few years older than the other but but we were it was all the decisions were were collaborative. There is an excitement when

Yeah. Yeah. heads of record companies come down and offer you the world and but we dampened down that excitement and took our time making a decision. When did you pull the trigger? Well we met uh there was a fellow by the name of Michael Goldstone who had signed uh

Pearl Jam, who was ascendant at the time, and he, you know, saw us play and he said something that no that no one else had said. I mean people wanting to sign the band basically like a two song cassette, you know. And he came in and said, I'm not sure I want to sign your band. I thought that was an interesting thing for someone to say. And that opened the discussion. And um he was very he was the fifth Beetle for the the beginning. He was a very important Like collaborative partner. Uh let's take a look if we can. I just want to take a look at at uh one of the videos we have for Rage Against the Machine. I remember thinking at one point when I I I'd seen footage

of a number of performances and every time I saw it th I I remember thinking to myself, this is the only band Or I'm wondering if the audience is gonna tear the stadium autumn to pieces. What was the magic there? But if you had to speculate, I mean I mean I think that um the shows were just so insane. Like they were so incendiary and and like and Zach is a tremendous tremendous musician and lyricist, but as a front man is like like the greatest, like he's like the punk rock James Brown. Like he's the greatest as a as a lightning rod on stage, and there is a a a a meaning to the band's music that transcends it being a great rock and roll band. The other is

It's a great rock and roll band. Like that's how like people like oh well how how do the politics like f If you don't have that vehicle of and it's this chemistry that naturally happens in the way the four of us played together. almost from the very first rehearsal, certainly from the very first couple of shows to that, which was I think Woodstock ninety nine. Um But but It gives off um

Uh An aggressive aggressive energy that allows this kind of This this. feral release. There's something about music that is you know, mus there was music before there was spoken language. And there's something in the like our

Reptilian brain that responds to a communal gathering with Rhythm. Yeah. And that that's just something that's in from camp fires campfires and mammoths. Um and when you get that combination of of of rhythm and a rhyming couplet and an an in a gathering of the tribe like that, and you do it right. Um

That something like that happens. Were you nervous at all before ninety nine Woodstock? The before that actual concert. Yeah. No. concert devolved you know over the course of that. I will give you a couple other instances though that where there were a where there was a real barrier to

One was um In the early two thousands I began doing uh playing acoustic songs under the moniker, the night watchman. Uh and I would go to uh I began signing up at open mic nights under that name, so I wouldn't sign up under Tom Morello, because there would be an expectation of playing Bulls on parade. Um and I would play these you know Dylan esque, Woody Guthrie esque political folk songs. And you know, at this point in my career, I had played in front of millions of p people live and I was terrified playing in front of eight people who weren't particularly listening to my songs anyway, with a with a with a latte machine grinding in the background. But like would I remember the lyrics because I felt very vulnerable. When I'm on stage with Rage Against the Machine or Audio Slave, if my guitar were to snap in half, the show would still be great. They are gonna they're gonna be fine. But when it's just you you and you're

guitar and you know, the intimacy of that moment. It was terrifying. And I, you know, through time learned to do that. Let's pull up a video of Nightwatchmen. Inside of the dirt room. Old Chevy Rue.

Um to the window. Set in the back. Gathered Muffin. So My head and my head.

Mr. D May A slip from shadow The shit. I so feel

Z So I wasn't worried about the audience out seats and rioting and that's very different. It's a very stark contrast. Before say a performance like that. Yeah.

or any performers for that matter. What are your rituals or routines preceding that time. Well there's still uh there's still a bit of a uh anxiety barrier. Uh And while all of my Rock and roll work. Is

d has is done stone sober. There's a level of technique involved in that that I must be very, very present for. There's a lot of Jameson involved in the night watchman performance, truth be told. James in therapy. I heard about that. There's a bit of a you know a bit of a the the anxiety about sort of remembering lyrics and this, that, and the other that goes away when you know it sort of dampens down those voices. But but those I mean I I began doing that Because uh well I love playing in rock bands and rock bands allow a um uh a chemistry that no one person can uh put forward on their own. I like the purity of the solo singer songwriter thing too. And it's also you can do it gorilla style. Like I I've played it, you know, hundreds dozens, thousands of of protests and

you know, marches and you just need an acoustic guitar and a plane ticket or a bicycle or a uh uh uh a ride over there. I really like that kind of independence of spirit and I I and I always was a fan of heavy music. And when I discovered the early Dillon, the Springsteen Nebraska record, the Woody Guthrie stuff, the Johnny Cash acoustic records that it dawned on me that there's no heavier music than some of that. Like M Metallica Black album is super heavy, but um you know Springsteen's Nebraska that goes toe to toe with it with no amplifiers in sight. What led to the

And uh fridge against the machine. Well Raj. Well while it was a band that um professed uh solidarity in our music we were never able to manifest it almost from day one within within our own ranks. Um and you know, and I wish that I could tell you the the the the conflicts were political ones. They were, you know, just you watch Spinal Tap, all the stuff. Every rock band there's only four or five boxes to check. We had you know Three of the four.

Uh But I mean and you know, my contribution to it was like I was always f super type A and had sort of the go the the musical, the political, the record goal in mind and would not uh And would sometimes turn a deaf ear to the feelings of my bandmates. I've learned that lesson through the years that that's a very important thing. Do you have to get that right first, or none of the rest of it matters. Um and so in you know, in two thousands I quit the band and we formed a band called Audio Slave and but Rage reunited in two thousand seven, played shows for a few years, which was very nice to do. The question that I've wanted to ask all night was how do you end up

Having a reunion with your father. Uh well I basically met my father when I was thirty four years old. Uh we'd had he had not had anything to do with our family uh growing up. And throughout uh you know my life my mom had sent to the PO box that they had in Nairobi in the early sixties, you know, updates on Me, you know, like your You know, your son graduated from high school, your son went to

college or something got a record deal, this that and the other, and had never heard never heard back. Decades of of not hearing back. So we went to um uh Kenya for the first time my first time to Kenya uh when I was thirty four years old and my mom had written to my dad who she hadn't heard from in decades said, you know, please meet us at the airport. So we're flying, you know, into Nairobian. Mom, like he could be dead twenty five years and certainly doesn't have the same P. O box as he did back then. She's like, Oh, I'll bet he'll be there in a minute. So we land He's not there to meet us, but we arrive at the Hotel Intercontinental where there's a note from him. Sorry I couldn't meet you at the airport. I'll pick up for dinner tomorrow at eight.

Uh, which was stunning. Uh And the I realized

Not only am I gonna see my father for the you know first time uh in a very long time tomorrow, but that he had received all of that stuff through the years and not comment on it. Uh So we met and it was crazy'cause you know, with those of you who are blessed with having two parents, you've seen them before. So you know I look a lot like some combination of the two of them. Uh and uh you know we went it went You know, f fairly well, somewhat awkwardly, but he had received he commented on some of the music not the music so much, but some of the lyrics and the music. And um he had remarried and I had three half brothers who we were never allowed to meet and did not know that we existed. Uh

And that wasn't awesome. So uh you know, we exchanged a few This is at a time when Um Search engines were being discovered and whatnot, and he was a computer guy and he put in his father's name to some developing search engine, and to his surprise.

A hundred articles m referencing A man with his father's name and a similar was referred to by a guy named Tom Morello, who was the guitar player of a band called Rage Against the Machine, and he And and it coincid and serendipitously, it was the same week when Rage was on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine. So he went to the newsstand and saw a guy in that band that he just read about who looks more like his dad than he does.

And he managed to find me and you know, we had a cr interesting discussion and and the toothpaste started to get out of the tube and Uh I began to meet My can't it turns and I learned their name. It turns out there were a couple of first cousins who were attending Pepperdine University. And so I met them. My brother Segani is his name, who discovered me, calls up our dad back in Kenya. with the phone call my dad thought was never going to. Crazy. Uh So this will give you some indication into the

how the Kenyan Mail would react to such thing. So uh Dad, what do you know about a guy named Tom Morello. And this is what my dad how my dad responds to. Oh. If he doesn't talk about it.

It doesn't get talked about. Yeah. And that's the end. That's the end. That's the end. So um but you know my uh g then girlfriend and now wife were very charming people and we we're now friends with the family. Like the brothers have come, they stay at our house, everybody's great. And we uh go to my brother's ch graduation at Georgetown. The attendees at the party will be myself, my Yeah.

My brother Seggeny. Our dad and his wife who doesn't know anything about anything that's going on. What can go wrong? So we're sitting at dinner and uh my my uh brother has taken great relish at each step of the way in Re the the reveal. The reveal And now the biggest reveal of all is about to happen. Um and he announced he's like the illusionist. He's like, Oh wait, it get back it get it gets announces at that dinner um that um You know, that this is his brother. And at first you know, people think that oh like your bro. No, my brother, like biological brother, like my dad's son, brother.

Mom. She couldn't have been more gracious given what must have been a Pretty stressful dinner for her, and he maintained his silence throughout the while. Um It all turned around and he uh

Welcome into the family. He apologized to my mom and thanked her for raising a good kid, uh, and was And kinda open the door to Yeah. What cat what catalyzed that shift in him? Uh I think it it may have been the passing of his younger brother, uh who was an advocate. But then his older brother is the uncle who we who who we know. And again, there's a there's a sort of a hierarchical

At this was my my uncle's eightieth birthday, and he announced that his younger brother Майда воду з фамилию та евиман. And I think he was just trapped then. And it took a long but he did. He at the end of the day he did the right thing and he sat me down. He he asked for my forgiveness. And and he's since I've had kids, he's very much in their life and they've They've melted him in a way that is really lovely. He just had his 88th birthday now, and he came to my wedding and stuff. So it's been it's been really, really lovely to connect with that side of the family that I never thought that I would have.

We're gonna Shift gears a little bit and go to audience questions. Uh, if you weren't a guitar player, what would you do for a living? Hm. Um

Well my my twin passions have been uh m um always been music and politics. It would certainly not be something in conventional uh uh two party politics, but uh I would probably be working as a community organizer or something like that. Mm-hmm. If you had to teach someone guitar in three months, what would the curriculum be? Uh I was a guitar teacher for a while during my um semi homeless days and uh

Uh the what I taught the the lesson that I learned, when I took those bad guitar lessons where they wanted me to do the boring stuff, I applied that when teaching you know brand new guitar players. In the first guitar lesson with every student I would teach them. to write a song. They would write a song in that first guitar lesson and try to like smash that barrier between there's these mythical gods who make music and then there's you who one day might hope to, you know, touch their shoes. Like you're a songwriter today. I'm gonna teach you two chords, you decide what order they go in and how long you play each one.

Boom, you've written a song like you and the Beatles now are both songwriters, you know? And there's a I would see in them this like Like Holy crap, like I can write something tomorrow, you might write another one. And that's what I would give them as their homework. Like you write another one for next time. And then we'll you're gonna have a catalogue of six songs in the first three weeks of your playing guitar. And we can work on the other stuff along the way, but And then it's called playing guitar, and that sort of enthusiasm comes from

early successes. What are the biggest wastes of time that you see novices making like diligent ones. Yeah. Yeah. Uh What are the wrong things to focus? Well, it's it depends on what you want to do and who you wanna be, because there's there's a uh I believe there's a clear delineation between musicians. An artists.

And if you Like I said, when you start playing guitar, what you wanna do is you wanna sound like you're so You're trying to be a musician. I'm sh I love Angus Young. I wanna Play Angus Young songs. At some point Are you going to go beyond you have to make a determination. And many people are

delighted and content to be able to learn and play their favorite songs and jam along with the radio, but if you have a vision that goes beyond Yeah, you know. aping the technique of your favorites, then you have to take a different step. And that is a step into risk and a step into the unknown to say, this is what has come before, now I'm gonna write my own song. I'm gonna take a risk that people are gonna paint those songs. And I'm gonna take a risk of Путін мійсел

out there. Check it out, I can play Van Halen. It's like hey, check it out. I wrote this song. that includes my Van Halen influence and this, that, and the other. And here it is. And that's the only way that you know art grows and it's as an artist that's the only way Go.

What would you say? I guess maybe that's the answer, but the follow up to that would be if If you're saying Teaching a ninth grader or tenth grader. Really talented. And they're like, I wanna be a creator. I wanna be an artist. And they get up there and they just bow. Yeah.

Yeah. Cricket, maybe booing. Everyone, not alone. What would you tell them before or after that. Well I tell them first of all you the th you're bombing with one thing you have in common is with everyone ever I'd say name the five artists who you love the most. And I would Ensure them that all of them have bombed as bad or worse as they just did then. And then it's a matter of sort of continue and You know, maybe there's a lot of like you know, basement. you know, m music heroes. You have to play with other people. That helps you in a way. You have to play in front of other people. That helps you in ways. And that you do that over time and you will amass a

You'll you will have the opportunity to discover who you are as a musician and or as an artist. What books, if any, have you gifted the most to other people? I well certainly the one book that I've gifted the most in my life was a book that I first read when I was fifteen and I reread it Almost yearly. It's a book called Watership Down. Watership Down. Uh

It's uh you know, I've read books that have been You know, more serious political tomes in my time, but the Heroism, courage, and friendship exhibit in that book among a number of rabbits. And it's it is the single most breathtakingly exciting book that I've ever read as well. Water Ship Down.

Richard Adams, a strong endorsement for that book right there. Do you have a quote or quotes that you live your life by or think of often? Hm. Uh Uh

And we can come back to the side. Sure. No no no. I'm gonna I gotta have something for you. There is a quote from um written by Joe Strummer of The Clash. I Cut this I wrote this down and put it on my refrigerator as a You know, as a youth.

uh it says uh Are you taking over? Or are you taking orders? Are you going backwards? Or are you going forwards?

And I would look at that on my refrigerator and I would try to answer those four questions for myself every day. That is good. That's really good. Yeah. What purchase of a hundred dollars or less and this is all rough.

in recent memory has most positively impacted your life. Well I can tell you one purchase, forty forty Canadian dollars. I'm not sure what the in what the what the exchange rate is uh but uh I bought a guitar off a pawn shop wall in Toronto. years ago in the early nineties. I just like the look of it. It wasn't even I don't think it was made it's like made of plywood. It's not even like really made of wood. Um and that was the only guitar I used on a song called Tire Me on the Rage Against Machine Evil Empire Record, which was the band's first Grammy. It was forty Canadian dollars well spent. Can you tell us about Prophets of Rage? Prophets of Rage is uh the band that I am in in now. Uh it consists of Be Real from uh Cypress Hill, Chuck D, and DJ Lord from Public Enemy.

And uh Timmy C and Brad Wilk from Rage Against the Machine and Audio Slave. And it's a band that uh w was formed in the uh in the tumult of the 2016 election is a band that will continue into the future. Uh the two things that we can be certain of is that uh you know looking forward is that there will be injustices in the world. We can also be certain there will be resistance to those injustices, and those that resistance needs a sound track, uh and it will be provided by profits of grave. Mm-hmm. We pulled up the video?

Dangerous Times demand dangerous songs. And when we formed this band, uh that was our first ever public performance, which was a free show for the homeless people on Skid Row. Uh we uh it was the We wanted this band to from you know from the onset to w not just talk the talk, but to walk the walk. Uh our first three sh of our first eight shows, any show which we charged a dollar for, all of them went to local homeless charities in the cities that we were in and And the shows and the shows that were free shows were on Skid Row and we're at Norco um Penitentiary in Southern California, um and at the protests outside of the R and C. So it was like it's a band we wanted it's it's in set from day one we wanted it to You know, like live it like we were gonna play it. And so that's a very exciting band to be in. If you had a huge billboard, you could put a few words short message on it. For the world to see.

What would you put in a f uh. Yeah, short, just a short message. Um people are driving, texting, being idiots. Whoop, there it is. Ha ha.

Or the Chicago Cubs are the 2016 world champions. There I think there are a lot of artists out there. you know, creators who want to impact the world. And maybe they're intimidated, maybe they don't think they can. What would you say to those people? Mm-hmm.

glance at history, you know. Um and the first thing to do is ask yourself, has You're saying artists exclusively? Like if you're has has any art ever affected you? You know, that's the first question. And I know for me it was bands like Public Enemy and The Clash that they didn't they didn't necessarily change my mind about things, but they made me they connected me to a bigger world than the one of Libertyville, Illinois. Made me think, oh, there's other people that see things the way that I do. They're not my teachers. They're not my they're not the governor of my state, uh, but they're Musicians who and they have an audience, and when I go to see their show, all of a sudden there's a community that's beyond.

you know, my suburb or the you know, my job at the Dairy Queen or wherever. And so I would say that that's Анітам і бросте your soul artistically, be careful because somebody may be listening and that you can make a connection that you wouldn't otherwise. Ladies and gentlemen, Tom Marello. Thank you very much. Hey guys, this is Tim again, just one more thing before you take off, and that is Five Bullet Friday. Would you enjoy getting a short email from me every Friday that provides a little fun before the weekend?

Between one and a half and two million people subscribe to my free newsletter, my super short newsletter called Fi Bullet Friday. Easy to sign up, easy to cancel. It is basically a half page that I send out every Friday to share the coolest things I've found or discovered or have started exploring over that week. It's kinda like my diary of cool things. articles I'm reading, books I'm reading, albums perhaps, gadgets, gizmos, all sorts of tech tricks and so on that get sent to me by my friends, including a lot of podcast guests, and these strange esoteric things end up in my field, and then I test them and then I share them with you. So if that sounds fun, again, it's very short, a little tiny bite of goodness before you head off for the weekend, something to think about. If you'd like to try it out, just go to Tim.blog slash Friday. Type that into your browser, Tim.blog slash. Friday, drop in your email, and you'll get the very next one. Thanks for listening.

What you see above is a preview of the first minutes. One unlock costs 3 credits and covers this episode forever: full segment and word-level timestamps on this page, plus .txt, .srt, .vtt and word-level JSON downloads, as many times as you like.